Posted on 04/22/2008 5:13:26 AM PDT by marktwain
Hartford police officers recovered about 400 illegally acquired firearms last year. Those weapons didn't pop up out of thin air.
People who owned or had access to legal firearms either lost them or sold them to convicted criminals, the mentally ill and other people who were unauthorized to own guns.
Many violent urban crimes and college campus shootings could be prevented if Congress would pass laws to impose foolproof methods of stopping legal guns from getting into the wrong hands.
Unfortunately, efforts to pass such laws are often thwarted by the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby on grounds that they would violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
A new national organization called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, whose members include Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez and Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch, proposed a four-step legislative plan last week aimed at curbing the flow of illegal firearms in ways that do not raise Second Amendment issues.
Congress should take heed and act on the recommendations.
The mayors want Congress to stop gun-show sales of firearms to people without background checks; require checks on gun-shop employees; block gun dealers with revoked licenses from selling off their weapons stock; and bar people on the terrorist no-fly list from purchasing guns.
Elsewhere in the country, some states are beginning to follow Connecticut's example and are passing laws forcing gun owners to report lost or stolen weapons immediately. Others are considering laws to require criminal background checks on ammunition buyers and to place imprints on ammunition so as to better trace guns used in crimes.
Congress should take these matters up as well. Restricting illegal gun traffic is a law enforcement issue, not a Second Amendment issue.
35. Do you support legislation to ban the manufacture, sale and possession ofa. handguns?
While a complete ban on handguns is not politically practicable , I believe reasonable restrictions on the sale and possession of handguns are necessary to protect the public safety. In the Illinois Senate last year, I supported a package of bills to limit individual Illinoisans to purchasing one handgun a month; require all promoters and sellers at firearms shows to carry a state license; allow civil liability for death or injuries caused by handguns ; and require FOID applicants to apply in person. I would support similar efforts at the federal level , including retaining the Brady Law.
b. a ssault weapons?
Yes.
c. ammunition for handguns and assault weapons?
I would support banning the sale of ammunition for assault weapons and limiting the sale of ammunition for handguns .
It isn’t silliness, it is pure stupidity. I wonder just what “foolproof laws” he would enact that would PREVENT criminals from getting guns?
The mayors group is a front for Bloomburg, entirely funded by him.
The bulk of the funding comes from Bloomberg, but he and his gang of illegal mayors are also getting help from the Joyce Foundation:
"... The list also includes Fred Grebauer, who happens to be the top gun control advisor to none other than New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Joyce has been generous with Bloomberg as well, paying out $175,000 to the “Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City,” a contribution intended to help “organize a coalition of mayors from around the country to promote national, state and local policies, litigation and law enforcement strategies aimed at reducing the flow of illegal guns into cities.” So now we know who’s paying the tab for Bloomberg’s obsessive gun control campaign as well..."
THis is about outlawing private sales, and making every gun transaction subject to govt scrutiny: registration IOW.
Precisely. A few mayors have come to their senses and bailed out of his coalition once they realized that Bloomberg is a bald-faced liar and his agenda is exactly what you stated. Examples:
Idaho Mayor Withdraws From Bloomberg’s “Coalition”
New Jersey Mayor Continues Trend: Leaves Bloomberg’s Anti-Gun Coalition
Indiana Mayor Latest to Leave Bloomberg’s Anti-Gun Coalition
You - Preacher
Me - Choir
Send this to Obama
The Gun is Civilization
by Marko Kloos of the
Munchkin Wrangler blog
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat—it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
There’s something about the northern States, east of the Mississippi that give me the chills. Have you ever read Molon Labe? It might be time to add that to you list of to do’s.
I have never wanted to sell my carry piece(s), so I never asked how you could take a weapon inside to sell. How does that work?
The gun shows we have here in Reno, Nevada do not have metal detectors in the foyer. I guess they just trust us not to carry concealed.
If you want to take a weapon in, it’s the same as Texas, —Hand the weapon over so that a plastic cable tie can be inserted so as to prevent inserting a cartridge into the chamber or closing the action.
Then you can hang a for sale tag on it and carry it around. Lots of guys sell their rifles that way. I am sure that if you had multiple weapons they would require that you buy a table.
Nothing is going to stop private sales at gun shows. I’ve bought guns in the parking lot, in the ticket line and also walking the aisles. Hell, I even bought a gun while sitting in the chair at my local barbershop! A few onlooking strangers in the barbershop looked a bit nervous though. (I was particularly pleased with that stunt!)
You can purchase all the ammo you want on the Internet.
I buy 1000 rds at a time.
What a slack jawed imbecile that Barack Hussein Obama is!!
This would be impossible. Like the old saying goes, Locks are made to keep honest people out.
Also, if someone wants to commit a crime, no law will stop them. Only law abiding citizens obey the law
and punishing them will not prevent anything.
Actually, the gun show that I described was in Massachusetts. Come to think of it, I need to find a couple of good shows here in Texas, since I need to accelerate my conversion from “urban mode” to “rural mode”.
Unless you know of an online place that I’ve never heard of, my local Walmart is about half the price of the online prices I’ve seen (Cheaperthandirt or MidwayUSA) and there’s no shipping.
I pay just under $30 for the 100 round Winchester White Boxes in .45acp and .38 Special and under $20 for the 100 round boxes of 9mm. I get bulk boxes of 550 rounds of Federal hollow points .22lr for $12.
I’m on several different mailing lists and wait for sales on .223 and 9mm.
I’ve been stocking up since the 60’s. .22, .223. 9mm, .30-06 and 12 ga 00 buck.
I was at a gun show a couple weeks ago and worked out a deal for 2500 rounds of 9mm for $375.
That’s a good price, I just checked one of the sites I’ve used.
They have it for the same price - it’s Wolf and some guys don’t like Wolf, it shoots okay.
The way your original post was worded threw me off a little.
I wasn’t been contentious, just inquisitive.
One thing I like about buying online is having UPS deliver it to the door.
Wal-Mart is only 1/2 mile from the house, I’d forgotten they they sell ammo, I don’t shop there, my wife gets my diet peach Snapple there.
I still have Stinger .22 ammo I purchased in the 60’s when they were talking all of that anti-gun stuff, so I stocked up, big time.
I’ve found that the ammo at our gun shows is kinda pricey, you got a great deal.
Faulty premise on two counts. 1: That Government could do ANYTHING effective at all. 2: The issues isn't too many guns on the streets. It's that not enough law abiding folks carry to protect themselves and others.
Why didn't we think of this before!
Let's apply these same "foolproof methods" to all criminal activities. They can also be used to protect the people from shoddy journalism with it's never ending lies, half truths and omissions.
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